The updated version of FedSpending.org has garnered a few media hits in papers and blogs around the country. Below is a bit of the coverage:

• GovExec.com story
  
• San Fransico Examiner editorial
  
• Mark Tapscott's Blog
  
• Sunlight Foundation Blog

OMB Watch is pleased to annouce we have just released a new version of FedSpending.org with updated data, new features, and improved navigation. The new site is now live - see it yourself at www.fedspending.org.

OMB Watch issued a press release that describes the updates and improvments made to the site, and you can learn and see more about FedSpending v2.0 in the About This Site section, or by exploring the site yourself.

We welcome your feedback, comments, and questions about the new website, so please go to the Contact section of FedSpending.org and send us your thoughts.

OMB Watch will be releasing an updated version of our popular website FedSpending.org later today. FedSpending.org allows users to search and download extensive information about government spending going back to FY 2000, from contracts to grants, loans, insurance payments, and direct spending.

Below are some preview screenshots of the new look and features of the website. The new site will go live later this afternoon. Be sure to check it out and explore the new features.

New FedSpending.org Homepage with Features


(click to englarge)

Added Summary Outputs with Trend Chart


(click to englarge)

President Bush often speaks about not spending federal dollars on programs that do not get results. In fact, in his State of the Union speeches in 2005 and 2006, he referred to a list of programs he was proposing to be reduced or eliminated because they did not produce results. And each year, on Friday after the budget was released, the Office of Management and Budget released a huge document detailing each of those programs the president wanted reduced or eliminated - just in time not to make it into papers or the public's consciousness.

Well, this administration is nothing if not consistent. Late on Friday, the same document "Major Savings and Reforms in the President's 2008 Budget" was released to little fan fare (although the always feisty GovExec.com did release a good summary).

The list of programs compiled by OMB is of little value other than using it to chastise the administration for attempting to use their biased PART mechanism to justify canceling programs they have long disliked. As we have noted, in past years, only one-third of the president's hit list of programs were even reviewed by the PART to begin with. While the administration has now reviewed pretty much every federal program with the PART, my guess is the list this year is much the same as it was in the previous two years. Just like I said - they are nothing if not consistent.

We did not have a lot of good things to say about the president's FY 2008 budget last week (see here, here, here, and here), but there was one thing that was worthy of praise.

Back in 2006, in addition to continuing to criticize the Program Assessment Rating Tool, we criticized changes OMB made to the publication of their PART analyses and data sets. OMB launched a new web site that year called www.expectmore.gov that had very nice looking summary pages for each PART rating. At the time the web site was unveiled, it appeared the more extensive data sets and spread sheets that OMB had previously publish on the PART - and that we used extensively in our analyses - had disappeared.

But this year, OMB has made some new improvements to the web site that include moving the "assessment details" link from the bottom of the web site where they were impossible to find to the top of each PART rating page and making the larger PART spread sheet files available for download (in CSV format). These are excellent improvements, especially for analysts.

In addition, OMB had announced before the budget was released that they would voluntarily be publishing Agency's budget justifications documents that are formulated for the congressional appropriations committees each year. Whether this was in response to our work last year to pass a law requiring those documents be made public or because the good folks over at OMB just thought it best is unclear. Regardless, the justification materials will be available sometime this month on ExpectMore.gov. Give OMB some credit for actively publishing government information without being prompted.

Kudos to OMB on these improvements - acts where government actively opens up and releases information are hard to come by these days.

The LA Times has a good story today on the human toll of defense contracting. Many contractors come home with the same problems as soldiers, but they aren't given the same recognition or care.

Unable to access local veterans' hospitals, some of the men took a class in post-traumatic stress in a small room beside the bar. Several had been diagnosed with the disorder but had been unable to get steady treatment.

Driver Robert Rowe, 46, of Ohio, was shot in the knee in August 2004 while hauling ice for KBR in a convoy near Baghdad. Army medics treated him, and he flew home with his knee oozing blood under thick bandages.

He is still battling KBR's insurer, American International Group Inc., to get workers' compensation. He lives out of his truck and friends' homes, unable to afford his old apartment.

AIG did not respond to a request for comment Sunday, but it has maintained that 90% of claims by Iraq contractors have been paid without dispute.

"I look at that flag now, and I say, 'What the hell does that represent anymore?' " said Rowe, who served in the military before going to Iraq for KBR.

In 2006, the PART "improvement plan" stated, "This improvement will be completed pending the receipt of the GAO Report assessing the Media Campaign evaluation." Well, the report was delivered in August and there isn't much evidence the administration is taking the research to heart. The GAO report concluded:

Given that [the] evaluation stated the campaign did not reduce youth drug use nationally, Congress should consider limiting appropriations for the campaign, beginning in the 2007 fiscal year budget until ONDCP provides credible evidence of a media campaign approach that effectively prevents and curtails youth drug use. (emphasis added)

Now I don't know whether this program is a good one or not - just because the PART says it doesn't get results does not mean it should be de-funded. But Grim's story contains a facinating insight into how research and performance data inform the Bush administration's budgeting decisions:

The bad [GAO] study results weren't news to the White House, which sat on the research for a year and a half while continuing to fund the ad campaign on the basis that the study was still ongoing, Slate magazine reported in September. In October, National Journal reported that John Carnevale, former director of budget and planning for the drug czar's office, admitted that the office "did not like the report's conclusions and chose to sit on it."

So, if PART supports the administration's goals already, they follow it. If it doesn't support their goals, they, ahhh...sit on it.

OMB Watch has released a preliminary analysis of the President's FY 08 Budget request.

President's Budget Full of Cheap Rhetoric; Wrong Priorities
President Favors Tax Cuts for the Wealthy over Domestic Needs

Check back here for additional analyses and commentary on the budget as the week progresses.